How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers • Hacker News Board

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#111

Post by blauditore » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 9:31 AM UTC

  span[data-content="S"]
    + span[data-content="p"]
    + span[data-content="o"]
    + span[data-content="n"]
    + span[data-content="s"]
    + span[data-content="o"]
    + span[data-content="r"]
    + span[data-content="e"]
    + span[data-content="d"] {
    display: none;
  }

This only hides the "d", right? You generally can't hide a higher-level element based on drill-down selectors, so pure CSS wouldn't be enough. But of course, finding the appropriate parent by scripting would be trivial from here.

Apart of that, why can't one just accumulate all visible text by filtering out all `display: none` elements? Of course, this could be attacked again by e.g. shrinking the "noise" characters to width 0.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#112

Post by feu » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 9:31 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #80

a13n wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't work. Users who are willing to pay to make ads go away are the most valuable audience for advertisers because they have money to spend. Therefore FB would have to charge a TON of money to make up for their billions in lost ads revenue, and nobody would pay that amount anyway.

Reddit lets people pay to not see ads. It's $6/mo.

Reddit is not, by all accounts, a profitable company.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#113

Post by qxnqd » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 9:37 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #62

paggle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like being a poker player, but you probably get paid more.

At least poker doesn't have a negative effect on society, given you're only playing against people who opt-in by playing the game. This in comparison is fighting against people who just want a bit of peace and less sewage being dumped in their Facebook timeline.

Facebook has a negative effect on society according to whom? How does a tool that allows you to connect to other people have a "negative effect on society"?

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#114

Post by Angostura » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 9:39 AM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #70

abhiminator wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot agree more. Quit Facebook and its sister service completely (talking about WhatsApp; never really got around to using Instagram) after the 'View As' feature exploit last year that led to 50 mil user accounts' data being exposed [0], and I must say, I've never felt more calmer, tranquil or better, mental health wise. I feel our brains could do much better with a little less of constant bombardment of highlight-…

Quitting Facebook itself would help with what you are saying, but I am curious what you replaced WhatsApp/Messenger with. For example, I have good friends in other countries, and sending pictures and short texts is one of the best ways to stay in contact. We do talk over the phone occasionally, but not having a simple way to send pictures or links would pull us much further apart. Sure, email could be an option, but…

Signal or Telegram

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#115

Post by commoner » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 9:41 AM UTC

johnsea wrote: post #103

tsimionescu wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quitting Facebook itself would help with what you are saying, but I am curious what you replaced WhatsApp/Messenger with. For example, I have good friends in other countries, and sending pictures and short texts is one of the best ways to stay in contact. We do talk over the phone occasionally, but not having a simple way to send pictures or links would pull us much further apart. Sure, email could be an option, but…

Threema. You pay a certain modest sum and get a service. A terribly old-fashioned business model it seems... (but works for me).

Threema's mobile clients are closed source, while Signal and Riot are both open source and free of charge.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#116

Post by aembleton » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 9:45 AM UTC

johnsea wrote: post #103

tsimionescu wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quitting Facebook itself would help with what you are saying, but I am curious what you replaced WhatsApp/Messenger with. For example, I have good friends in other countries, and sending pictures and short texts is one of the best ways to stay in contact. We do talk over the phone occasionally, but not having a simple way to send pictures or links would pull us much further apart. Sure, email could be an option, but…

Threema. You pay a certain modest sum and get a service. A terribly old-fashioned business model it seems... (but works for me).

Are all of your friends on it? I don't know anyone running it so it wouldn't work for me. Everyone I know is either on Messenger or Whatsapp. One friend is on Telegram, but he's also on Whatsapp.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#117

Post by StreamBright » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 9:46 AM UTC

1propionyl wrote: post #53

I'm surprised I haven't seen a single comment say what ought to be the obvious: the easiest way to never see Facebook ads is to just not use Facebook. I should hope I'm preaching to the choir, I'm sure, but... quitting really isn't as hard as you tell yourself it is. It's not as essential as you think it is.

And what do you do with the 100.000.000 websites using Facebook logins, SDK, like button etc.? I think you need to go a bit further than just not using it. You need to block the entire IP range and DNS to completely block them.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#118

Post by hamhand » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 9:53 AM UTC

1propionyl wrote: post #53

I'm surprised I haven't seen a single comment say what ought to be the obvious: the easiest way to never see Facebook ads is to just not use Facebook. I should hope I'm preaching to the choir, I'm sure, but... quitting really isn't as hard as you tell yourself it is. It's not as essential as you think it is.

127.0.0.1 connect.facebook.net

127.0.0.1 graph.facebook.com

127.0.0.1 staticxx.facebook.com

127.0.0.1 api.facebook.com

127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com

127.0.0.1 an.facebook.com

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#119

Post by a_imho » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 9:55 AM UTC

How the narrative that content blockers are a non threat has fallen.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#120

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 9:55 AM UTC

a13n wrote: post #52

notafraudster wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"do everything they can to monetize" Except, evidently, allow users to pay money to not be subjected to ads.

Wouldn't work. Users who are willing to pay to make ads go away are the most valuable audience for advertisers because they have money to spend. Therefore FB would have to charge a TON of money to make up for their billions in lost ads revenue, and nobody would pay that amount anyway.

Seems to have worked out fine for YouTube (Premium subscriber here).